


Day's Work

by winterover



Series: The Great Google Drive Purge [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Gen, Gun Violence, In Medias Res, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents, backstory that is hinted at but not explored sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:05:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterover/pseuds/winterover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been hunting James Tiberius Kirk for two years. Neither of them has ever managed to neutralize the other. Today, that just might change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day's Work

There was finally silence, broken only by the sound of his own breath and his heartbeat thudding in his ears. Fifteen feet away, Jim Kirk lay like an overturned bug on the concrete. His t-shirt was soaked through with sweat, one leg of his jeans with blood, and though his pretty face was twisted with pain and effort, his right arm didn't waver in the slightest, holding the gun pointed squarely at McCoy's head. Like he didn't have one pointed right back at him. Like he didn't _know_ it was finished for him, hadn't heard McCoy calling for backup during the chase.

He'd always had balls of steel. It was one thing worth admiring about him.

"It's over, Kirk," McCoy called, voice raspy from exertion. He brought his other hand up to steady his shot, because a wounded animal was often the most dangerous of all. Unpredictable. "Drop it. It's done. You know and I know you're not goin' anywhere. Not with that bullet in your leg."

"No," said Kirk through gritted teeth. "You're gonna kill me, then do it. I'm dying with this gun in my hand."

The stain of red was spreading wider and wider over the ground beneath his legs, and McCoy's fingers twitched, his surgery-trained eyes assessing the injury before he could help himself. _Damn it._ He was a hunter, not a doctor. Not anymore. It was true that his medical background was his greatest asset - _You know where to hit a man to make it hurt, McCoy. You know where one nick will bleed them dry, and where it'll just make them beg for mercy. You're the most efficient damn interrogator I've ever met._ But it was also sometimes his greatest weakness as well.

Especially, it seemed, in the case of one James Tiberius Goddamn Kirk. The prize he'd been after for the better part of two years now. So many encounters, some dangerous (hand-to-hand on a half-constructed bridge? Fuck that. He never wanted to do that again) and some just plain ridiculous (infiltrating that masked ball, and that audacious little shit grabbing his chin and stealing a kiss from him without McCoy even _realizing_ it was the guy he had marked for death. Christ, he'd sure gotten bitched out by the boss for that one). So many close escapes. Kirk loved to lead him on, but McCoy had him now, so... so now what?

In the distance, echoing through the abandoned complex, he could hear the screech and spin of wheels on gravel, approaching on the only road in. Van. More than one. They'd take Kirk, and considering how long he’d been a thorn in the boss’s side, things wouldn't go easy for him. The injuries he had now would be the least of his problems. Kirk's jaw clenched visibly, the expression on his face sliding from a pained grimace into something approaching a smirk, though even from meters away McCoy could still make out the damp, fevered gleam in his eyes. Even James Kirk wasn't immune to fear. "Do it, Bones."

"I told you _not to call me that._ "

Kirk fired almost before McCoy realized his was going to - a pro, not telegraphing it in the slightest - and McCoy flinched away to the right with a startled sound, glancing down at his white shirt as if expecting a blossom of blood. There wasn't any. Kirk had missed. Probably deliberately, like he was baiting him - 

"Come on!" Kirk yelled, voice cracking. "You know what they'll do. I know you're better than this - I know you were a doctor, I know what you did for people, you don’t fucking think I cracked your file five minutes after I met you? If it were anyone else after me, I would have been dead a year ago and you fucking know it. You had _so_ many chances." Kirk struggled to sit up, coughing. _Broken ribs from that fall. Likely internal bleeding. Significant volume of blood loss, though not immediately fatal._ "Fine. Fine. So many chances, and here's your last one. On a silver platter, gift from me to you. A clean shot."

Kirk tossed his gun away, sending it skittering over the floor, and lay back. Lips pressed together, hands curled loosely at his sides. Giving up, every line of his body miserable in the knowledge of his imminent demise, be it here on this warehouse floor, or later, unspeakably.

McCoy's breath caught in his throat.

"Do it."

He took a step forward, then another, gun still raised, until he was standing over Kirk, still sighting down along the barrel. Kirk looked up with those electric-blue eyes of his, and coughed wetly, a thin trail of dark blood trickling from one side of his mouth.

"You know, McCoy? I never really thought you were meant for this business," said Kirk softly.

Were those meant to be Kirk’s last words? Commentary on _his_ existence, on _his_ choices? For just one furious instant, McCoy could see himself firing, middle of the forehead, spray of red out the back of his skull painting the concrete - and the light in those eyes going out for the last time. What would life be like, not chasing Jim Kirk around the world? The surety that he would never see him again?

McCoy gritted his teeth. Then holstered his gun, pulled his watch off and dropped it on the ground. "You manipulative little son of a bitch," he growled, hating himself, and yanked Kirk up by the front of his shirt.

*

_"Well, where the hell did they go, then?"_

The operative could hear the spit flying from the boss's mouth even over the comm, could picture that vein throbbing furiously in his forehead. If they caught McCoy - and they would, eventually - the boss would have the man ripped limb from limb. And _then_ he'd have a little chat with what was left of him. "We're working on locating them, sir. They can't have gone far. Judging by what he left behind, Kirk would be too badly injured for that."

The watch with the embedded tracker and communicator was McCoy's. The pool of blood it was lying in? Kirk's, as a quick field analysis had proved. The spatter trail ran into the warehouse for about a hundred feet and then just ended at a pile of wooden crates, pieces of bloody ripped fabric tossed on top. So Kirk was wounded, McCoy'd probably cleaned him up, and then what? Vanished into thin fucking air?

 _"Retrieve them,"_ the boss's voice said in his ear, dark and deadly. _"Track them down and bring them both to me. Alive."_

"Yes, sir."

*

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER ALERT THEY DISAPPEARED AND NOBODY EVER SAW THEM AGAIN THE END.
> 
> I'm relatively certain this was supposed to be a fill to a kink meme prompt... but of course, I lost that prompt years ago, and lost the larger plot that this was supposed to develop into, too. (I don't think it works too badly as a stand-alone snippet, though, personally.) So if you ever prompted Kirk/McCoy as antagonistic assassins and/or secret agents, here: a present for you!


End file.
